


Fight till the end, but I'm only human

by mamaesme (ooka)



Category: Secret Circle (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-22
Updated: 2011-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-27 20:54:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/299952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ooka/pseuds/mamaesme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post 1.09  - Until she gets Adam’s text.  Her heart stops, her hands shakes and she thinks, did you kill my mother Jake?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fight till the end, but I'm only human

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aaronlisa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aaronlisa/gifts).



  
It’s not the first time since someone explained what a witch hunter was that Cassie wonders if one killed her mother.  If that’s why the house was on fire.  If that’s why her mother couldn’t get out before the gas leak caused the explosion that killed her.  If the gas leak was the cover up and one of those bottles, the ones that she broke with her _ragedesperationangersorrow_ , was what killed her mother.   


She takes a breath and pulls out that picture of her mother, the one from just before the fire.  Her mother leaning over and smiling at the tiny camera on Cassie’s phone.  She traces her mother face and plays those old forgotten voicemails on her phone and wants to ask why. _Why would someone kill her mother?_

She wants to ask a witch hunter one question: why do you kill? Until she gets Adam’s text.  Her heart stops, her hands shakes and she thinks,  _did you kill my mother Jake?_

And even after Adam rescues her, and Jake is still stuck on the boat and staring at her, all she can think about is just that.

_Did you kill my Mom?_   


_Did she burn like you tried to burn me?_   


_Did she know I was a witch?_   


_Did she say anything about my Dad?_   


_Did she say anything about me?_   


_Would you kill me too?_   


 

 

  
  
It takes a few months, and there are more demons and enemies, and something is seriously wrong with her grandmother, and Diana’s dad gives her the creeps, and Faye might be her sister, when Jake blows back into town.

Cassie hides behind Faye’s anger and Diana’s worry and Adam’s rage, letting them take the reigns with Jake.  Vet him, allow him back into their broken circle.  Because any time she comes close to opening her mouth, she swears she’s going to keep asking him questions until her throat hurts and her voice is scratchy and worn.  

She keeps silent, because sometimes ignorance is better than knowing.  Like when she was little, and she never asked her mother what they were running from.  There are so many regrets in her life, Cassie is afraid to make Jake another.

“Did your group kill my mother?” Cassie asks.  Her tone is careful and deliberately bland, despite the fact that she wants to rage, to hit him, to claw, bite and scream until he gets it.  Until he understands how much she hates him, hates what he represents.  Hates that he would kill her, has tried to kill her, without a second thought.

She doesn’t hate him entirely.  As much as Cassie wishes she could - she  _can’t_ .  Can’t help but notice how his shoulders are slumped.  How he is so utterly tired and broken, sitting next to her in the abandoned house.

Jake blinks away from his study of the herbs on the table before turning to her, startled.     
__

_Good_ , Cassie thinks vindictively.

“Your mother?”  He pauses before shaking his head.  “No.  If we had...”

He drops off; the words  _we would have killed you too_ linger loudly.  Too loudly.  Cassie turns away from him and plucks at a leaf.  

“But you’ve killed witches before.”

The fact that Jake doesn’t answer says enough. 

It’s not that Cassie’s naive.  It’s not like she expects him to be squeaky clean.  She  _doesn’t_ .  She knows there is blood on his hands, maybe even her families blood on his hands.  A second cousin, a friend of Faye’s, maybe even someone on her Dad’s side.  Maybe even her Dad’s blood. 

She shreds the piece of basil, and it clings to the bottom of her dress.  She leaves them there, little specks of green over the black fabric.

“I just make the potions.”  He finally says, quietly, to his hands.  He doesn’t look up at her.

“That’s  _only_ what you do.  You set it up.  It’s like saying, I only left the door open to the serial killers and gave them all the information they needed.”

“You kill,” she says hotly, angrily.  Because he would have killed her.  He would have.  He still might.  But there is something, something about how he looks at her, like he cares.  Like he cares and he knows he shouldn’t.

“What do you want me to say?  That I enjoy it?  That I like seeing the people that killed my parents, that looked down upon me, that kill others get killed?”  Jake thrusts his hands out.  

“Do you want to hear that I killed my first witch when I was seventeen?  It was the old fashion way.  A silver knife doused in the blood of another witch, my blood.  And it was only because she saw me using magic to get an ATM to give me some cash so I could eat that night?  Do you want me to tell you about how the witch hunters trained me.  I can kill you six different ways just sitting next to you Cassie.  Is that what you want to hear?”

Cassie snorts.  “I think I could kill you right now.”

She stands up, angry down to her bones as she remember the boat house.  The desperation.  Diana about to die, and she can feel that rage tucked away so deep inside of her stirring.  

She can feel the energy, the black, dark energy, bubbling underneath her fingertips.  She can feel the grasp she has on everything around her, the world, life, everything.  She thinks, if she really wanted to, wanted to curl her hand into a fist, she could squeeze Jake’s heart in her hands.  Squeeze it until it burst.

And she isn’t so sure she would regret it.

“You share the same amount of blood on your hands as they do.  Probably even more.  What else do you do?  Charm them into liking you, take their valuables and create the concoctions to kill witches?  You earn someone’s trust, someone who is just like you, just as scared and broken as you were when you were younger, and you help kill them without a second thought.”

“Alright, you got me!” he shouts.  “I kill people.  I watch them burn without a second thought beyond  _good riddance_ .  Because the world is safer.  There are things you don’t get, and witches can destroy the world if they want to.  They destroyed our worlds when we were little.  Witches killed our parents because of greed.”

“Our parents were witches!” she screams.  “Your brother was a witch! You are a witch!  When you are done with this little crusade, are you going to kill yourself next?  Because if you live, then your kids will be witches and you will start the entire process again.”

“If I have to, I will stop the misuse the best I can.  Killing witches is the best option.” Jake swears.

She scoffs, and it’s a harsh noise, like metal on gravel.  “You don’t just kill people Jake.” She states, barely more than a whisper.  “You let them believe in you, think of you as a friend, and then rip that belief to shred before you set them on fire.”

“Don’t,” he says, lowly.  “Don’t act like I did that to you because I didn’t.”

“Really?” Cassie laughs, because she has to.  Because her only other option is reaching out and doing something that she would regret.  “Was that before or after you stole some jewelry from my house and tried to kill me?”

“It’s not like that!  It’s - ”

“If you say ‘different with you’, I will smack you across the face,” Cassie spits out, taking a step forward.

Jake stands, moving right into Cassie’s space.  She is barely a hairsbreadth away from his face, craning up to look him in the eyes, to see that he gets that she hates him.  Sees that the isn’t remorseful for the fact that he’s killed people before and probably will again.  Sees that Jake is still the same guy as before, but now she just knows all the skeletons in his closet.

“Cassie,” he mutters.  “It really is.”

“Oh, because you love, or I make you see the light, or something sappy like in a romance books with Fabio on the cover,” she bites.  “Fuck you and your pretentious need to say that killing people because they are witches is okay.  I’m a witch and a decent human being, and I don’t think it’s okay for you to kill me.”

Jake breaths, “I don’t want to kill you.  You are the first person I didn’t want to kill.”

And his voice is broken, face confused as he places his hand on her face.  It’s cradles the entire right side of her face, and she wants to fight him, break away, scream a spell out that would throw him away.

“Goddamnit Jake,” she swears.  “Lines like that aren’t supposed to work. They are only okay in sparkly vampire romance novels.”

He laughs, leaning his forehead against hers.  “Aren’t we living a fantasy novel?”

She shrugs.  “Are you back to kill me again?”

Hissing, he tilts her chin up until Cassie is looking him straight in the eye.  “I told the Circle before that I’m here to help.”

“That’s what we thought last time,” she returns.  “Look how that turned out.”

“Cassie,” he whispers, her name catching with a breeze before blowing away.  He tilts his head, lips brushing against her tentatively for a second.  He pulls back for barely a second, before Cassie has even registered the kiss before he’s kissing her again, nipping at her lips.

Cassie doesn’t want to, shouldn’t want to, but kisses him back, dark and furious and wraps her arms around his shoulders until her nails bite into his skin.  She knows there will be marks, and smiles into the kiss at that.

“I don’t trust you,” she says when he pulls away.  “You’ll still kill witches.”

He’s silent.

“I thought so,” she whispers.

Jake’s lips press together, and he nods.  He stands there for another second before leaving.  The floorboards squeak as he goes, loud, and Cassie can feel her blood in her veins.  The question is still on her tongue.  Still pounding in her head.  

She bites her cheek to keep from calling out as he leaves.  Not because she is scared of his answer.  She’s resigned herself to the eventual _yes_ , but what she is more frightened of is the chance of a _no_. And what a no would mean.

Cassie waits until she can’t see him in the forest before pulling out her phone and asking Diana to come pick her up.  When Diana says she’ll be there in ten, Cassie collapses onto one of the couches and waits.

  
  
_Would you kill me Jake?_   


**Author's Note:**

> I hope, dear reader, that you liked this. Jake and Cassie's dynamic has always been interesting to me, so I was glad to have the chance to play with them. Happy Holidays!


End file.
